JAMIEL'S LAW

I am sure that all of you are aware of the controversy swirling around police policies concerning illegal immigrants which have left the country with many "sanctuary cities." Well, the residents of Los Angeles will get to vote on that issue if a voter initiative gets enough signatures to get on the ballot for the next city election. Here is the Los Angeles Times report on the initiative:

Los Angeles Times

SUPPORTERS OF JAMIEL'S LAW SAY THEY HAVE ENOUGH SIGNATURES TO GET MEASURE ON MAY BALLOT

The voter initiative would allow Los Angeles police to arrest illegal immigrant gang members solely because they're illegal.

By Phil Willon and Evelyn Larrubia
December 6, 2008

Supporters of a proposed Los Angeles voter initiative that would allow police to arrest illegal-immigrant gang members solely for being in the country illegally said they collected enough petition signatures before Friday's deadline to qualify the measure for the May ballot.

The signatures still need to be verified by the Los Angeles city clerk's office, a process that could take up to three weeks. Proponents, who needed to gather 73,963 signatures from valid registered voters in the city, said they had submitted more than 76,000.

Jamiel's Law, as it is known, is named after 17-year-old Los Angeles High School football player Jamiel Shaw II, who was gunned down in March allegedly by a reputed gang member who was in the country illegally. The measure would modify the Los Angeles Police Department's Special Order 40, which prohibits officers from initiating contact with individuals for the sole purpose of determining whether they are illegal immigrants.

Immigrant-rights advocates and LAPD Chief William J. Bratton strongly oppose Jamiel's Law, saying it is unnecessary and opens a backdoor to "racial profiling" by law enforcement. Bratton, when testifying before the City Council in April, said officers already have the authority to tell immigration authorities when known gang members have committed crimes.

Proponents dismiss critics as being more concerned with political correctness than public safety. They said the proposal is focused solely on gang members who have been documented as such by law enforcement agencies, and would allow them to be arrested, prosecuted and deported just for being illegal immigrants.

"The whole point of Jamiel's Law is that we shouldn't wait for the dead body. If you can't get a gang member for a crime -- and it's a crime to enter the country illegal -- get them for that," said the measure's author, mayoral candidate Walter Moore.

However, Father Richard Estrada, who does extensive work with immigrants and founded a shelter for young homeless men in Boyle Heights, said that any such measure would allow overzealous law enforcement officials to pull over male Latino drivers at will and would distract officers from the task of getting dangerous criminals off the streets.

"I hope they don't" get enough signatures," said Estrada, an associate pastor at the 189-year-old Our Lady Queen of Angels Church in downtown Los Angeles. "What are they going to do? Are they going to arrest all the immigrant kids who are gang members or look like it or are at the wrong place at the wrong time? We need officers to really go after the bad guys."

Supporters of Jamiel's Law had until 5 p.m. Friday to turn in petition signatures to the city clerk's office. City elections officials will count the signatures and conduct a sampling to determine if they are from valid registered voters who live within the city limits.

Jamiel Shaw's family has actively supported the measure, and was collecting signatures up until Friday's deadline.

"What makes me so sad is that we have to fight so hard just to report gang members who are in this country illegally," said Shaw's aunt, Althea Shaw, 47, of Los Angeles. "This is not about color. This is not about Latino versus black. It's about right and wrong, about life and death."

The alleged killer, Pedro Espinoza, awaits trial on a murder charge.

ASSHOLE COP OF THE YEAR AND COMPANY

Last Friday, I blogged "Asshole Cop of the Year" about a callous cop's treatment of a lady in labor. In today's TownHall.com, Paul Jacob has a column which deals with the abuse of law enforcement authority by the police, prosecutors and politicians. His column includes the incident in which the asshole state trooper I wrote about detained a husband trying to get his wife, who was in labor, to a hospital. I think Jacob's TownHall.com column hit the nail right on the head. So here it is:

WHERE HAVE YOU GONE, SHERIFF TAYLOR?
by Paul Jacob

Some time back I posed a question: "Could the most important thing one does for one’s community be to send a pocket copy of the U.S. Constitution to local politicians and police?"

The question was rhetorical, since the expected answer was "yes."
Increasingly, our police and prosecutors seem more interested in putting people in prison than in making society safe for peaceful folk. They need to look at the Constitution. Regularly.

But the problem is not just ignoring the Constitution. The problem is ignoring common sense.

It seems almost daily we read news reports that tell us of some insane bit of "piling on" by law enforcement.

Take Trooper Michael Galluccio, of Boston.

John Davis was driving his wife Jennifer to a hospital. She was in labor. Her contractions were a mere three minutes apart. And John had twice been waived on by troopers, using the breakdown lane of Route 2, to get to a hospital during rush hour.

So John pulled up behind Galluccio and asked permission to go on just a little bit further, to the hospital exit.

Not only did the trooper not heroically offer to escort them, he said no, and he made the gasping Mrs. Davis bare her belly for him. And then he took up their time writing out a ticket.

The trooper wouldn’t let them proceed on the open lane, but he did ask them if they wanted an ambulance. They declined. They were so near their goal. "We just want to get off this exit," Mrs. Davis said.

Here we have a classic case of the letter of the law conflicting with the spirit. Laws are made for men. And pregnant women. Everyone with a lick of sense knows what the trooper should have done. But the trooper did exactly the wrong thing.

This enforcement mentality may seem to flow naturally form a "tough on crime" stance. But it doesn’t. The crimes that need tough enforcement are assaults, murders, burglaries, robberies. But in a medical emergency, driving on a special lane — or even on the side of the road, with continuous honking of SOS in Morse code — can only be seen as legitimate.

Unless you have forgotten the purpose for laws in the first place.
And many in law enforcement do.

Not long ago I reported on an even more absurd case, in Shreveport, Louisiana. There, the police chief cooked up this hare-brained idea of holding gas station employees and owners criminally liable in cases where drivers drive away without paying.

I can almost hear your incredulity. What? Is? Going? On? In? Shreveport?

Well, you see, the chief got the town council to require station attendants to make their customers pre-pay. If they don’t, and the driver drives off without paying, then the attendant is also a criminal!

This sort of regulation of everyday life is all too common. The basic idea is to scribble out a criminal code to make it easy for law enforcement. To you and me, prepaying for fuel is cumbersome. We rarely know how much gas we need beforehand. That is, we usually want to fill the tank, not just put "ten dollars" in. This simple fact of consumer preference, on the other hand, doesn’t mean anything to certain bureaucratically minded police chiefs. Or politicians. For them, the purpose of citizens is to obey the law whatever the law is.

Nonsense, of course. We fought a revolution to stop such nonsense. But it keeps coming back up.

Of course, some of today’s prosecutorial overkill qualifies more as vengeance than anything else. When the city of Sheboygan, Wisconsin, sent Jennifer Reisinger a cease-and-desist letter for her linking to the city government’s website on her own website, without one ounce of a good reason. Linking is the whole purpose of the Web, and Ms. Reisinger, a political activist, had every reason and justification for putting up a mere link to the city’s Web address.

But the city went ahead with the letter. Why? Because Ms. Reisinger was a pest. She had tried to get Sheboygan’s mayor, Juan Perez, recalled. For this activism, she was attacked by her own government. With a nasty, threatening letter.

So what are we to make of stories like this?

Well, I have a handy explanation: Power corrupts. We give police power over us, and we give politicians and prosecutors an even higher-order power. Why? To defend our rights. The police are vitally necessary. So are judges and (most of?) the rest. But, too often, they tend to forget our rights and instead look upon their power as something to be maximized. Rights? Schmights!

What we wind up with is a petty police state, haphazard and aggravating more often than not. Kafkaesque, sometimes. Certainly, the opposite of my favorite lawman, Andy Taylor.

Now, Kafka never watched The Andy Griffith Show. It wasn’t high art, or black comedy, so I’ve no sure idea what Kafka would have thought of it. But Sheriff Andy Taylor of Mayberry never used his toughness in a bullying or bureaucratic way. He was respectful of the public, interpreting both the rules and his own discretion with a heavy dose of common sense.

Unlike modern America, Mayberry was never Kafkaesque. If searching about for standards, better to reach into the oeuvre of Andy than of Franz. Our enforcement culture sure needs something.

LOWEST OF THE LOW

On November 25, 2008, the beheaded remains of Mr. Buck, a tame deer, were discovered in a wild life sanctuary at Houston's Bear Creek Pioneers Park. Mr. Buck, who enjoyed being petted, was a popular favorite of children and adults alike. According to investigators, under cover of darkness someone hiked through dense brush, cut through the chain-link fence at a remote section of the park, and then used a bolt cutter to open the gate to the sanctuary. After decapitating the poor animal, the culprit took off with Mr. Buck's head and 8-10 point antlers in tow.

When informed of Mr. Buck's untimely demise, County Commissioner Steve Radack said that "any person who goes in and attacks an animal in captivity is just the lowest of the low." Radack was being much too kind. There are not enough expletives to describe that piece of shit. Mr. Buck was obviously the victim of a sorry ass trophy hunter. That slug is facing felony poaching and animal cruelty charges. He could also face federal charges because part of the sanctuary is on federal land.

Following the posting of a $10,000 reward, authorities received a tip that led to the arrest last Friday of Brandon Gregory, 23, and the recovery at his apartment of Mr. Buck's severed head and antlers, along with the beheading instruments and the bodies of two additional improperly tagged deer. Gregory, who has a long history of illegal hunting, has been charged by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department with the state jail felony offense of taking a wildlife resource without landowner consent. His girlfriend, who is suspected of driving him to and from the scene of the crime, and another man could also be charged in this case.

Apparently things did not go smoothly for Gregory because Mr. Buck put up a valiant fight for his life. The Houston Chonicle reported Gregory told authorities that when he was about 15 feet from Mr. Buck, the deer lowered his head and charged toward him. The deer then knocked him to the ground, pinning him in the upper leg with his antlers. He said he would have taken the deer's entire body, but his injuries, which he described as being deep enough to fit half his pinky finger through, were too severe. Gregory said that, because of all the publicity, he did not go to a hospital for fear he would be caught. He also told investigators that he had a great admiration for the deer's antlers.

If convicted of the charge for which he was booked, Gregory could face 180 days to two years in jail and a $1,500 to $10,000 fine. Hopefully, he will face additional charges. Although he has yet to be convicted, please spare me all that "innocent till proven guilty" crap. The evidence against Gregory is overwhelming. Two years in jail is not nearly enough for this piece of shit. When all is said and done, they should hang Gregory up by his balls and ram every point of Mr. Buck's antlers up his sorry ass, one point at a time.



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TEACHERS UNIONS IMPEDE LEARNING

If you read my recent blog, "Teachers Unions Responsible For Hellholes" (11-26-08), you know that I am rather critical of teachers unions. While I agree that the unions have protected teachers from arbitrary, political and religious firings, I am appalled at the extent to which they go to protect the jobs of incompetent teachers. In doing so, they impede learning and help to perpetuate the hellholes of education.

Michelle Rhee, the American-born daughter of Korean immigrants, is the Chancellor of the District of Columbia school system. She has proposed an innovative education model. Her proposal would raise teacher salaries dramatically if they will give up tenure so she can root out incompetent tenure-protected teachers. As you can well imagine, her proposal has not been met with open arms by the unions.

Here is a report on Rhee's proposal from the November 12, 2008 issue of The New York Times:

A SCHOOL CHIEF TAKES ON TENURE, STIRRING A FIGHT
by Sam Dillon

WASHINGTON - Michelle Rhee, the hard-charging chancellor of the Washington public schools, thinks teacher tenure may be great for adults, those who go into teaching to get summer vacations and great health insurance, for instance. But it hurts children, she says, by making incompetent instructors harder to fire.

So Ms. Rhee has proposed spectacular raises of as much as $40,000, financed by private foundations, for teachers willing to give up tenure.

Policy makers and educators nationwide are watching to see what happens to Ms. Rhee’s bold proposal. The 4,000-member Washington Teachers’ Union has divided over whether to embrace it, with many union members calling tenure a crucial protection against arbitrary firing.

"If Michelle Rhee were to get what she is demanding," said Allan R. Odden, a professor at the University of Wisconsin who studies teacher compensation, "it would raise eyebrows everywhere, because that would be a gargantuan change."

Last month, Ms. Rhee said she could no longer wait for a union response to her proposal, first outlined last summer, and announced an effort to identify and fire ineffective teachers, including those with tenure. The union is mobilizing to protect members, and the nation’s capital is bracing for what could be a wrenching labor struggle.

Ms. Rhee has not proposed abolishing tenure outright. Under her proposal, each teacher would choose between two compensation plans, one called green and the other red. Pay for teachers in the green plan would rise spectacularly, nearly doubling by 2010. But they would need to give up tenure for a year, after which they would need a principal’s recommendation or face dismissal.

Teachers who choose the red plan would also get big pay increases but would lose seniority rights that allow them to bump more-junior teachers if their school closes or undergoes an overhaul. If they were not hired by another school, their only options would be early retirement, a buyout or eventual dismissal.

In an interview, Ms. Rhee said she considered tenure outmoded.

"Tenure is the holy grail of teacher unions," she said, "but has no educational value for kids; it only benefits adults. If we can put veteran teachers who have tenure in a position where they don’t have it, that would help us to radically increase our teacher quality. And maybe other districts would try it, too."

Ms. Rhee has significant public backing for her efforts to improve this district of 46,000 students, one of the nation’s worst-performing. Both presidential candidates lined up behind her in their final debate last month, with Senator Barack Obama calling her Washington’s "wonderful new superintendent."

Ms. Rhee, 38, has convinced Washington that she means business since Mayor Adrian M. Fenty plucked her out of a nonprofit organization based in New York City, the New Teacher Project, and installed her in the chancellorship 17 months ago. She has fired or forced out hundreds of central office employees, principals and paraprofessionals, as well as 216 teachers who lacked licenses, her aides said.

"Fire all incompetent teachers — that makes a good sound bite," said George Parker, the president of the Washington Teachers’ Union. "But remember that not only teachers are to blame for the problems in this district." Mr. Parker cited a chaotic administration that has had seven superintendents in a decade and has paid little attention to problems like truancy and student discipline. "You can’t fire your way into a successful school system," he said.

Mr. Parker said he had kept an open mind about Ms. Rhee’s proposals, which would raise star teachers’ salaries to $130,000, with bonuses, by 2010, and the two went together before several mass gatherings of teachers in July to explain them. But an August poll commissioned by the union found that teachers opposed Ms. Rhee’s proposal by three to one.

In the interview, Ms. Rhee said the raises would be financed largely by foundations that had given her commitments of $75 million a year for five years, of which a "significant portion" would go for teacher compensation.

"The foundations want to fund things that are innovative and will have national ramifications," she said. Ms. Rhee has declined to name the foundations, however, raising worries among some teachers about the foundations’ motives and about whether their commitments would remain solid if the nation’s financial crisis were to be prolonged.

The talks have made little progress in recent weeks.

"Students cannot wait for accountable teachers while adults argue," Ms. Rhee said on Oct. 2, announcing that the district would seek to dismiss even tenured teachers deemed ineffective, partly by training principals to manage a little-used procedure that allows them to identify teachers for a 90-day mandatory improvement plan. Those who fail to demonstrate progress could face dismissal.

Mr. Parker responded by promising that the union would help teachers use all procedures available to protect their jobs.

"I’m willing to be flexible and to try out-of-the-box things to raise achievement," he said, "but I’m not willing to move along this track that’s just geared to busting the union."

Of Mr. Parker, Ms. Rhee said, "We have a very good relationship — he drives me nuts."

The two leaders appeared together on Oct. 23 at an awards ceremony, and Ms. Rhee said they spoke briefly about the negotiations.

"You’re killing me," Ms. Rhee said she told Mr. Parker in a joking exchange during the ceremony.

"No, you’re killing me," Mr. Parker responded, she said.

Ms. Rhee’s relationship is less cordial with Randi Weingarten, the president of the United Federation of Teachers in New York and, also, since July, the American Federation of Teachers, which is helping Mr. Parker’s local.

During Ms. Rhee’s decade-long tenure at the New Teacher Project, her group operated programs for the New York schools chancellor, Joel I. Klein, and she helped him during negotiations with Ms. Weingarten in which Mr. Klein, too, initially attacked tenure and seniority rights.

Mr. Klein’s 2003 assault on tenure did not prosper, but those negotiations eventually changed the seniority system so that principals are no longer required to accept teachers in schools that are not a good fit for them and teachers are not required to go to those schools. Both sides say the change has improved school staffing, and Ms. Rhee has proposed it for Washington.

In May, hundreds of people at a convention of educational entrepreneurs here watched spellbound as Ms. Weingarten, a commanding presence onstage, and Ms. Rhee, challenging her from the floor, clashed over what should happen to tenured teachers whom no schools hire.

Ms. Rhee’s attitudes about teaching were forged in the 1990s in Baltimore, where she taught in an elementary school as a member of Teach for America, the nonprofit group that recruits college graduates to teach for two years in hard-to-staff schools, after which many leave for jobs in other professions.

"Michelle does not view teaching as a career," Ms. Weingarten said in an interview. "She sees it as temporary, something a lot of newbies will work very hard at for a couple of years, and then if they leave, they leave, as opposed to professionals who get more seasoned."

Teachers first won tenure rights across much of the United States early in the 20th century as a safeguard against patronage firings in big cities and interference by narrow-minded school boards in small towns, said Jeffrey Mirel, a professor of history and education at the University of Michigan.

"And the historical rationale remains good," Dr. Mirel said, pointing to the case of a renowned high school biology teacher in Kansas who was forced to retire nine years ago because he refused to teach creationism.

"Without tenure," Dr. Mirel said, "teachers can still face arbitrary firing because of religious views, or simply because of the highly politicized nature of American society."

Ms. Rhee and Mr. Klein are hardly the first public officials to inveigh against tenure, but few have succeeded in weakening it. Gov. Roy Barnes, a Democrat, persuaded Georgia lawmakers to repeal the state’s teacher tenure law in 2000. But two years later, angry teachers helped elect Georgia’s first Republican governor since Reconstruction, who promptly restored job protections for teachers.

Officials may have been most successful in abolishing tenure in Louisiana, where they had the help of a hurricane. Teachers in the Recovery School District, which was given control over many of New Orleans’s schools after Hurricane Katrina, serve at the will of the state superintendent, a spokeswoman for the district, Siona LaFrance, said in an e-mail message.

Maggie Slye, 31, a former teacher in Teach for America who is a literacy coach in a Washington elementary school, said she liked Ms. Rhee’s proposal because her salary would rise to $90,000 from $61,000 under the green plan.

"Isn’t it funny? I don’t even know if I have tenure," said Ms. Slye, who taught in Boston last year. "To me, tenure is not a motivator; I motivate myself. It just doesn’t mean a lot to me."

By contrast, Kerry Sylvia, 38, said she opposed Ms. Rhee’s proposal.

Although she is an award-winning world history teacher and works long hours to help students at her high school improve, Ms. Sylvia said that without tenure she would nevertheless feel vulnerable to arbitrary firing because she has publicly opposed some Rhee initiatives and speaks out about things like her school’s decrepit heating system.

"Don’t ask me to give up tenure, not even for a moment," Ms. Sylvia said.

DIXIE CHICKS MAY YET GET THEIR JUST DESERTS

Natalie Maines, lead singer of the Dixie Shits - oops, that was a freudian slip - can't keep her big dumb-ass mouth shut. You can refer to my blog, "Dixie Chicks Validate Darwin's Theory of Evolution" (8-26-06), if you've forgotten the remarks she made about President Bush in 2003 while the Dixie Chicks were on tour in London.

While commenting on her opposition to the Iraq war, Maines told a reporter for The Daily Telegraph that she was "ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas." As a result, a lot of Americans became ashamed that the Chicks were from the United States.

Although her comments were praised in Europe, in this country, she was accused of being unpatriotic and many radio stations in the South boycotted the Chicks by refusing to play any of their records. Naturally, the lefties and their diehard fans rushed to defend the trio by proclaiming that it is not un-American or unpatriotic to speak out against the war, and that the boycott amounted to an attempt at stifling free speech.

Horseshit! I agree that here at home it is not unpatriotic to oppose the war, but when Americans do so publicly overseas, they are being downright unpatriotic. All they do is to provide fodder for the many Europeans and others who are eager to heap scorn on the United States.

You would think that Maines would have learned her lesson from the Southern boycott. Ah, but with the brains of a brilliant ape or possibly of a stupid Neanderthal, Maines let her mouth overload her ass again. And this time, by getting herself involved in a murder case, she has gotten herself and the Chicks sued.

Here is MSNBC's report on the lawsuit:

Dixie Chicks singer Natalie Maines is the target of a defamation lawsuit by the stepfather of one of three 8-year-old boys slain in 1993.

Maines spoke out for three people convicted of the slayings and alleged the stepfather was instead involved in the killings.

Terry Hobbs, stepfather of Steve Branch, who was killed in 1993 with Christopher Byers and Michael Moore, filed suit in Pulaski County (Arkansas) Circuit Court on Nov. 25. The suit names all three members of the Dixie Chicks, but focuses on Maines.

The suit seeks compensatory and punitive damages. Hobbs claims he suffered loss of income, injury to his reputation and emotional distress.

Maines attended a Dec. 19 rally in Little Rock, where she claimed Jason Baldwin, Damien Echols and Jessie Misskelley — known to sympathizers as the "West Memphis Three" — were innocent and that supposed new evidence pointed to Hobbs. Her comments echoed a Nov. 26, 2007, letter that was still on the Dixie Chicks' Web site on Thursday, in which she claimed that new DNA testing of hair from the crime scene linked Hobbs to the killings and that his behavior after the slayings indicated his guilt.

The lawsuit says the claim is false.

Hobbs told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in a Feb. 1 interview that his reputation was in tatters and he wanted to clear his name.

"I want people to know I haven't done nothing wrong," Hobbs said. "I want them to hear it from me."

The lawsuit says Maines' statements were "so extreme in degree as to be beyond the pale of decency and to be regarded as atrocious and utterly intolerable in civilized society."

Assertions similar to those made by Maines were also made by lawyers seeking new trials for the three convicts.

The boys' bodies were found by police a day after they vanished from their quiet, tree-lined neighborhood May 5, 1993. Police arrested the three after a confession by Misskelley in which he described how he watched Baldwin and Echols sexually assault and beat two of the boys as he ran down another trying to escape. A jury gave Misskelley a life-plus-40-year sentence for the killings. A later jury gave Baldwin a life sentence without parole. Echols, then 19, the oldest of the three, received the death penalty.

The Arkansas Supreme Court later upheld the convictions, but a later documentary sparked interest across the Internet, as well as among celebrities, including Maines, who felt the teens were railroaded by police for their interest in heavy metal music and the occult. Supporters say they raised more than $1 million for a legal defense fund for the three, enough to pay for lawyers, new DNA testing and a second federal appeal on behalf of Echols.

A judge has since denied defense motions for a new trial.


This is another example of entertainment celebrities stirring up a public controversy by straying away from the expertise they are best known for - singing, acting, boozing, doping, philandering, divorcing, etc.. I pray that Hobbs will prevail in his lawsuit and that a jury will really sock it to Maines and the Dixie Shits.

ASSHOLE COP OF THE YEAR?

How do some of these guys ever get to be cops? A Massachusetts state trooper is in the running for "Asshole Cop of the Year." It is how he handled the case of a man rushing his pregnant wife to the hospital that makes him eligible for that dubious award. Here is The Boston Globe's report on the incident:

"A man cited for trying to use a breakdown lane to get to the hospital when his wife was in labor appealed his $100 traffic ticket today, but the couple doesn't intend to file a complaint against the trooper who issued it.

Jennifer Davis said her contractions were about 3 minutes apart, and rush hour traffic was stuck on Route 2 near Alewife Station. According to the Davises, John Davis drove in the breakdown lane and stopped to ask a trooper if they could take the lane to the next exit. He not only refused, they said, but he made them wait on the roadside while he finished writing someone else's ticket, then returned to their car and told them they would be getting a citation in the mail. Jennifer Davis said he also wanted to see her pregnant belly."

And here is how another source reported it:

".....they pull up behind a state trooper to ask for his help in getting to the hospital. Do they get his help? They do not. They get a ticket instead, for $100, and have to wait while the cop finishes the ticket he was already writing for someone else.

And after this woman in labor and her husband have been made to cool their heels and have been slapped with a $100 dollar ticket -- after all that -- the trooper tops it off by asking Jennifer Davis, the woman in question, to prove she was pregnant.

According to Jennifer Davis, the trooper said, 'what's under your jacket?' She said, 'my belly.' To which the trooper responded, 'okay, let's see it.' She was wearing a jacket, it seems, and so perhaps this intrepid law enforcer thought she and her husband were stealing a very large beach ball or something."

The Boston Globe also reported that:

"A State Police spokesman said the trooper was not expected to be disciplined because he was making a judgment call in enforcing the law that prohibits driving in the breakdown lanes. The lanes are only open to traffic on some highways during rush hour. 'Police officers are asked to make judgment calls every day and we understand that many of them are going to be subject to second-guessing but that goes with the job,' said spokesman David Procopio."

A judgement call? Yes. But did the state trooper make a good judgement call? No, most certainly not! Am I second-guessing the asshole? No. Even though I'm sitting here pecking away at my keyboard after having had plenty of time to reflect on the officer's judgement, there is no second-guessing on my part in this particular case. Why? Because this incident did not require a split-second decision.

The trouble is that the officer didn't give a shit about Mrs. Davis being in labor. "Trooper Doorite" may have gone strictly by the book, but his callous attitude and behavior dishonored the police service.

With the dismissive attitude about the trooper's callousness, as expressed by spokesman David Procopio, the Massachusetts state police would be well advised to adopt the policing philosophy of Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton. Bratton, who once served as Boston's police chief, tells his cops he wants them to police "consistently, compassionately and constitutionally." Good advise. And in the Davis case, a little compassion would have gone a long way.

Good judgement should have led the trooper to discontinue writing the citation he was issuing to the other driver so that he could get in his patrol car and escort the Davises to a hospital. Obviously, that never occurred to the asshole. And what about the first driver not getting that ticket? Big deal. Shit, that was just a traffic violation, not a felony or even a high misdemeanor.

BEN SHAPIRO TELLS IT LIKE IT REALLY IS

In the wake of the terrorist attacks on Mumbai, Ben Shapiro's column in today's TownHall.com gives us the real lowdown on Islamic militancy. No niceties in his column and no political correctness either. None of that "moderate Muslims" and peaceful religion crap. He just tells it like it really is. Shapiro says much of what I have been saying all along, only he says it much better. So, without any additional comments from me, here is Ben Shapiro's excellent TownHall.com column:

ENOUGH OF RADICAL ISLAM
by Ben Shapiro

Enough with the pseudonyms. Western civilization isnt at war with terrorism any more than it is at war with grenades. Western civilization is at war with militant Islam, which dominates Muslim communities all over the world. Militant Islam isnt a tiny minority of otherwise goodhearted Muslims. Its a dominant strain of evil that runs rampant in a population of well over 1 billion.

Enough with the psychoanalysis. They dont hate us because of Israel. They dont hate us because of Kashmir. They dont hate us because we have troops in Saudi Arabia or because we deposed Saddam Hussein. They dont hate us because of Britney Spears. They hate us because we are infidels, and because we dont plan on surrendering or providing them material aid in their war of aggressive expansion.

Enough with the niceties. We dont lose our souls when we treat our enemies as enemies. We dont undermine our principles when we post more police officers in vulnerable areas, or when we send Marines to kill bad guys, or when we torture terrorists for information. And we dont redeem ourselves when we close Guantanamo Bay or try terrorists in civilian courts or censor anti-Islam comics. When it comes to war, extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.

Enough with the words. Talking with Iran without wielding the threat of force, either economic or military, wont help. Appealing to the United Nations, run by thugs and dictators ranging from Putin to Chavez to Ahmadinejad, is an exercise in pathetic futility. Evil countries dont suddenly decide to abandon their evil goals -- they are forced to do so by pressure and circumstance.

Enough with the faux allies. We dont gain anything by pretending that Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are true allies. They arent. At best, they are playing both sides of the table. We ought to be drilling now in order to break OPEC. Building windmills isnt going to cut it. We should also be backing India to the hilt in its current conflict with Pakistan -- unless Pakistan can destroy its terrorist element, India should be given full leeway to do what it needs to do. Russia and China, meanwhile, are facilitating anti-Western terrorism. Treating them as friends in this global war is simply begging for a backstabbing.

Enough with the myths. Not everyone on earth is crying out for freedom. There are plenty of people who are happy in their misery, believing that their suffering is part and parcel of a correct religious system. Those people direct their anger outward, targeting unbelievers. We cannot simply knock off dictators and expect indoctrinated populations to rise to the liberal democratic challenge. The election of Hamas in the Gaza Strip is more a rule than an exception in the Islamic world.

Enough with the lies. Stop telling us that Islam is a religion of peace. If it is, prove it through action. Stop telling us that President-elect Barack Obama will fix our broken relationship with the Muslim world. They hate Obama just as much as they hated President George W. Bush, although they think Obama is more of a patsy than Bush was. Stop telling us that we shouldnt worry about the Islamic infiltration of our economy. If the Saudis own a large chunk of our banking institutions and control the oil market, they can certainly leverage their influence in dangerous ways.

Enough. After the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, the plane downed in Pennsylvania, the endless suicide bombings, shootings and rocket attacks in Israel, the Bali bombings, the synagogue bombing in Tunisia, the LAX shootings, the Kenyan hotel bombing, the Casablanca attacks, the Turkey synagogue attacks, the Madrid bombings, the London bombings, and the repeated attacks in India culminating in the Mumbai massacres -- among literally thousands of others -- its about time that the West got the point: were in a war. Our enemies are determined. They will not quit just because we offer them Big Macs, Christina Aguilera CDs, or even the freedom to vote. They will not quit just because we ensure that they have Korans in their Guantanamo cells, or because we offer to ban The Satanic Verses (as India did). They will only quit when they are dead. It is our job to make them so, and to eliminate every obstacle to their destruction.

So enough. No more empty talk. No more idle promises. No more happy ignorance, half measures, or appeasement-minded platitudes. The time for hard-nosed, uncompromising action hasnt merely come -- its been overdue by seven years. The voice of our brothers blood cries out from the ground.

PEACENICKS JEOPARDIZE ISRAEL'S SECURITY

I have written a number of blogs in which I debunked the term "moderate Palestinians" and pointed out that the Palestinians and the other Arabs of the Middle East have vowed to exterminate the State of Israel. Unfortunately, Israel's left-wing and its Peace Now movement has been seduced by the siren song of "moderate Palestinians" to live peacefully in their own state, side by side with the Jewish state. The peacenicks are willing to jeopardize Israel's security by suing for peace at any cost.

Israel's only ally, the United States, has also succumbed to the myth that Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah movement are willing to live side by side in peace with the Jewish State. Nothing could be further from the truth. For the Palestinians, the "two state solution" is just a step on the path to the eventual disappearance of Israel.

Moshe Yaalon, former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Force, has written a long essay in which he advocates a totally different approach to the peace process than that taken by Israel up to now because of relentless pressure from the international community. In his essay, Yaalon validated my position that the Palestinians and their Arab brethren are not really interested in a two state sollution. Here is that part of Yaalon's essay:

'Arafat’s views on this issue (the existence of Israel) reflected a consensus among the Palestinian leadership. For them, the Oslo accords were merely the starting point for the next stage in the struggle against Israel.

Carl von Clausewitz, the Prussian military theoretician, famously stated that "war is a mere continuation of policy by other means."

Palestinian policy was, and continues to be, the continuation of war by other means. After all, Oslo offered the Palestine Liberation Organization quasi-sovereignty in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip—a strategic benefit the organization could never have hoped to achieve had it confined itself exclusively to armed struggle. Such an accomplishment, they reasoned, justified certain reconciliatory gestures toward the Zionist enemy, although most of them remained rather vacuous.

"One foothold on the land of Palestine is more precious, and a thousand times more important to me, than words on paper," Arafat explicitly declared at the opening session of the Palestinian National Council in April 1996. The idea behind this pronouncement was particularly well stated by Faisal Husseini, who enjoyed a reputation as a moderate Palestinian leader and was a favorite of the Israeli left.

Shortly before his death in May of 2001, Husseini gave an interview to the Egyptian weekly Al-Arabi in which he stated, "Our final goal is to liberate all of historical Palestine from the river to the sea," and confirmed that the Oslo accords were a "Trojan horse" intended to induce Israel and the United States to open their "barricaded walls" to the Palestine Liberation Organization.'

FIRST KILL THE JEWS

The terrorist attack on Mumbai had a Jewish center as one of its prime targets. The Islamists chose a Jewish target even though there are hardly any Jews in India. Why? Because ever since the establishment of Israel in 1948, the leading agenda of Islamists has been driven by their hatred of Jews. That is why the Palestinians and their Arab brethren have vowed to wipe the Jewish state off the map.

In hisconfession, Ajmal Amir Kasab, 21, the only terrorist captured alive in Mumbai, claims the terror team was trained by the Pakistani group Lashkar-e-Taiba, the militant Islamists closely linked to Pakistan's ISI intelligence service. Kasab and eight others in the team made a reconnaissance trip to Mumbai several months before the attacks, pretending to be Malaysian students. They rented an apartment at Colaba market, near one of their targets, Nariman House, also known as Chabad House, a Jewish outreach center that is run by the orthodox Chabad-Lubavitch movement.

According to Kasab, upon their arrival in Mumbai, the 10 men broke up. Four men headed for the TajMahal Hotel, two for The Oberoi Trident, two for Nariman House and two - Kasab and a fellow terrorist - for the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus by taxi. The two terrorists who attacked the Chabad center killed six Jews inside, including Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his pregnant wife. The Rabbi's two-year-old son was rescued by his Indian nanny who managed to escort him safely out of the building.

In yesterday's TownHall.com, Dennis Prager had an interesting column pointing out that "with all the Pakistani Islamists hatred of Hindus, they did not attack one Hindu temple in India's major city" and that "with all their hatred of Christian infidels, the terrorists did not seek out one of the 700,000 Christians in Mumbai." He also wrote "that great evils often begin with the murder of Jews, and therefore non-Jews...............will learn too late that Jew- and Israel-haters only begin with Jews but never end with them."

Here is Prager's TownHall.column:

THE RABBI AND THE TERRORISTS
by Dennis Prager

It was obvious to observers around the world that one of the designated targets of the Pakistani Islamist terrorists was the Mumbai Chabad House, the one Jewish center in Mumbai. The 10 Islamic terrorists who came from Pakistan to India chose their targets with great care.

If one assumes that the terrorists primary goals were to destabilize India, weaken growing Indian-Pakistani cooperation in fighting terrorism, and greatly increase Indian-Pakistani tension, hopefully to the point of military war between the two countries, every one of the targets made strategic sense. Slaughtering as many people as possible in Indias major economic center, including as many foreign tourists as possible at Mumbais finest hotels, also made sense.

But one target seemed to make little sense. In fact, until the attack was over people were uncertain whether the terrorists attack on the Jewish center known as the Chabad House was part of the original plan or chosen spontaneously. Only when the lone terrorist who was captured told his interrogators that the Chabad House was planned a year earlier was it indisputable that killing the Rabbi, his wife, their children and any other Jews present was part of the plan.

The question is why?

Why would a terrorist group of Islamists from Pakistan whose primary goal is to have Pakistan gain control of the third of Kashmir that belongs to India and therefore aimed to destabilize Indias major city devote so much of its efforts -- 20 percent of its force of 10 gunmen whose stated goal was to kill 5,000 -- to killing a rabbi and any Jews with him?

The question echoes one from World War II: Why did Hitler devote so much time, money, and manpower in order to murder every Jewish man, woman, and child in every country the Nazis occupied? Why did Hitler -- as documented by the late historian Lucy Dawidowicz in her aptly named book The War against the Jews -- weaken the Nazi war effort by diverting money, troops, and military vehicles from fighting the Allies to rounding up Jews and shipping them to death camps?

From the perspective of political scientists, historians, and contemporary journalists, the answer to these questions is not rational. But the non-rationality of an answer is not synonymous with its non-validity.

For the Islamists, as for the Nazis, the destruction of the Jews -- and since 1948, the Jewish state -- is central to their worldview.

If anyone has a better explanation for why Pakistani terrorists, preoccupied with destabilizing India, would expend so much effort at finding the one Jewish center in a country that is essentially devoid of Jews, I would like to hear it.

With all the Pakistani Islamists hatred of Hindus, they did not attack one Hindu temple in India's major city.

With all their hatred of Christian infidels, the terrorists did not seek out one of the 700,000 Christians in Mumbai.

To reinforce my point, imagine a Basque separatist terrorist organization attacking Madrid. Would the terrorists take time out to murder all those in the Madrid Chabad House? The idea is ludicrous. But no one seems to find it odd that that Pakistani Muslim terrorists who hate India and want it to give up control of Indian Kashmir would send two of its 10 terrorists to kill perhaps the only rabbi in Mumbai. As Newsweek reported during the siege, Given that Orthodox Jews were being held at gunpoint by mujahideen (sic), it seemed unlikely there would be survivors. Newsweek, like just about everyone else, simply assumes Islamists will murder Jews whenever and wherever possible.

They are right.

For years I have warned that great evils often begin with the murder of Jews, and therefore non-Jews who dismiss Jew-hatred (aka anti-Semitism, aka anti-Zionism), will learn too late that Jew- and Israel-haters only begin with Jews but never end with them. When Israeli Jews were almost the only targets of Muslim terrorists, the world dismissed it as a Jewish or Israeli problem. Then it became an American and European and Filipino and Thai and Indonesian and Hindu problem.

Two final points:

One is that it is exquisitely fitting that the same week the murders in Mumbai were taking place, the United Nations General Assembly passed six more anti-Israel resolutions. As it has for decades, the U.N. has again sanctioned hatred for a good and decent country as small on the map of the world as the Chabad House is on the map of Mumbai.

Two: Statements from Chabad in reaction to the torture-murders of a 28-year-old Chabad rabbi and his wife called on humanity to react to this evil with random acts of kindness. Evil hates goodness. Thats why the terrorists targeted a Chabad Rabbi and his wife.

A KNIGHT IN SHINING ARMOR

Here is a story from CBS 60 Minutes that is too good to be true. Gerald is a small hick town in Missouri with only one police officer on each shift. The town of 1,200 residents had a drug problem its tiny police force had troouble handling. Unexpectedly, one day a knight in shining armor rode into town claiming to be a federal narcotics officer. Bill Jakob offered his assistance and it was eagerly accepted.

During the two months Jakob worked in Gerald, his investigations led him to bust around 20 people for illegal drug activities. Then it was discovered that he was a phony with a history of prior con-jobs. He was arrested by the FBI and subsequently pled guilty to impersonating a federal officer and guilty to 22 additional charges. Jakob will be sentenced next month and faces 5-6 years in the slammer.

The knight had turned into a nightmare. 60 Minutes reported that "Now the town of Gerald is paying the price. The police chief and two other offficers were fired. And because of Jakob's involvemennt, no one he arrested has been charged. Instead, many of them are suing the town for tens of millions of dollars for violating their civil rights."

Sorry, but I laughed throughout the whole 60 Minutes segment on Jakob. Those country bumpkins bought the Brooklyn Bridge. I've reproduced that part of the transcript which shows how this con-artist fooled Gerald's mayor and police chief. Like I said, it's too good to be true. You can find the complete transcript on the 60 Minute website. Here is the partial transcript:

CBS 60 MINUTES - November 2, 2008

HOW A PHONY FED FOOLED A SMALL TOWN

Like many small towns across the country, Gerald, Mo. was struggling with a tiny police force and a big drug problem. Then a man, known as "Sgt. Bill," showed up.

Bill Jakob flashed a badge and announced his credentials: an undercover federal agent sent to clean up the town in a county with one of the highest number of methamphetamine labs in the country.

He quickly helped police round up dozens of suspects and was welcomed like a conquering hero. As Katie Couric reports, it all seemed just a little too good to be true.

"I didn't just wake up one morning and decide I was Batman or Superman. I found myself in Gerald," Jakob says.

Jakob, driving his own undercover police car, arrived earlier this year in Gerald, a rural town so small there's only one traffic light for its 1,200 residents.

"I woke up everyday with the intention of, 'Hey, I'm really doin' some great things here.' And I fed off of it and I enjoyed it. And you know, I slept good at night. I really did. I thought, man, 'I'm putting drug dealers out of business,'" he tells Couric.

Jakob says making these arrests gave him an adrenaline rush. "But that isn't really the thing that I focused on, the most, was just every bust it was, it was a good bust."

No one shared that sentiment more than Ryan McCrary, the new police chief who was struggling to control a growing drug problem with only four cops. Now he had a big time agent with the "Multi-Jurisdictional Narcotics Task Force" doing surveillance around the town and rounding up suspects.

"Once everything started unfolding, he was the drug expert, pretty much, from the task force," McCrary recalls.

The police chief says it felt "pretty good" to actually have some back up from what appeared to be the federal government.

In two months, Jakob and Gerald police arrested about 20 people and, more often than not, Jakob says he got them to confess.

Mayor Otis Schulte told 60 Minutes the town was grateful. "A lot o' people in town were. They thought that things are getting done. We got some help. I mean, a small town, we have one police officer on at a shift," the mayor explains.

"So, in a way, for a period of time, Bill Jakob was like a guy on a white horse comin' in to save the day a bit?" Couric asks.

"To help out, yes," Schulte says.

"I was very effective," Jakob says. "I think part of it was the fact that they were out of their comfort zone. If you're used to dealing with a three-man or four-man police department out in the middle of nowhere in Gerald, Missouri, and all of a sudden you find yourself across the desk from a federal officer, that's intimidating."

But Jakob wasn't a fed, had never been a fed, and wasn't even a certified cop.

Bankrupt and unemployed, the closest he'd ever come to the feds was when he had worked as a security guard in the parking lot of the Federal Reserve Bank in St. Louis. But he was creative, and he concocted an elaborate scheme to con the entire town of Gerald into believing he was an agent working with a federal task force.

Jakob says he told the police chief he worked for the "Multi-Jurisdictional Narcotics Task Force."

Asked how he came up with that, Jakob told Couric, "You know, actually it sounded good. I've heard that it was used in a movie."

That movie was "Beverly Hills Cop 2."

"I've seen that movie. Maybe I had it subconsciously in the back of my head," Jakob says.

He also got an official looking six-point star badge with the task force name on it from the Internet, as well as business cards with the Justice Department logo on them.

Jakob says it isn't hard to make a business card. "I had to have these things. I mean, I was becoming this person."

And soon he'd convinced the police chief to formally request his help from the Department of Justice: Jakob gave him a phony fax number and arranged for a female friend to answer the phone.

BAD JUDGEMENT OR FELONY?

In Texas, football is king and what would King Football be without those erotic routines by scantily costumed cheerleaders to rev up the guys in the stands. Among the high schools, competition for a position on the cheerleader squads equals, if not surpasses, that of the comptition for a place on the football team.

Most of you may recall the "Texas Cheerleader Mom" who, in 1991, tried to hire a hitman to kill the mother of a girl who was competing with her daughter for a place on the same cheerleader squad. She wanted the mother murdered because she thought the other girl would be so distraught over her mom's death that she would withdraw from the competition.

Anytime you have an elite group - cheerleaders, fraternity members and spcial op military units for example - the candidates for such groups or their "newbies" are likely to face some sort of degrading initiation rite. That degradation is known as "hazing" and acts of hazing have been outlawed throughout the United States.

Now, seven Texas teenaged high school cheerleaders from the Houston suburb of Katy are in the news after having been charged with pushing several bound and blindfolded junior varsity cheerleaders into the swimming pool at a private residence. The seven girls have been charged with a misdemeanor and, if convicted, face a punishment of up to six months in jail and a $2,000 fine.

One of the newbies, along with her parents, made a complaint because she could not swim and, once in the water, feared she was about to drown. Guess what's happened to the traumatized victim. She is the one that is being punished. The poor girl has been ostracized by her fellow students and both she and her parents have received all kinds of threats..

Gerald Treece, Professor of Law and Associate Dean at South Texas College of Law, maintains that the offending cheerleaders should have been charged with aggravated assault, a felony. He believes that when they threw the bound and blindfolded junior varsity cheerleaders into a swimming pool, they put the victims' lives in jeopardy, thereby committing a felony.

On the other hand, the defendants' attoneys say that the seven cheerleaders should never have been charged with anything beause no one ended up being hurt and thus no crime occurred. According to the attorneys, they are guilty only of using bad judgement and there is no law against that.

Bad judgement, my ass! When an attorney talks to the press with a straight face and insists that in this case no crime has been committed, he is just another example of the only difference between a lawyer and a liar - the spelling. The cheerleaders committed a crime bordering on a felonious assault.

The fact that the newbies consented thereto does not absolve the perpetrators. If a chronic pain patient begs you in front of 10 credible witnesses to take his life, you will be brought up on a murder charge if you go ahead and put him out of his misery. At best, consent may serve to mitigate the extent of punishment if the cheerleaders are convicted.

When all is said and done, this will have been an extremely expensive experience for the accused cheerleaders. Even if they are acquitted by a jury, their parents will have accumulated a ton of legal bills as each defendant is represented by a different attorney. And, there is always the possibility of a civil lawsuit for damages to follow. Come on girls, how about doing some of those erotic gyrations and let's hear some of those great cheers!

CHICAGO'S MAYOR DEFIES HELLER DECISION

In my recent blogs on gun control, "Anti-Gun Control Garbage" (11-18-08) and "Conservative Jurist Slams Heller Decision" (11-23-08), I called attention to the fragility of the Supreme Court's D.C. v. Heller decision which, by a razor thin 5-4 margin, held that the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms applied to indivicual citizens. I suggested that we pro-gunners may have celebrated a bit too soon.

So far, Chicago pro-gunners have absolutely no reason to celebrate the Heller decision. Steve Chapman, a columnist, editorial writer and member of the Chicago Tribune's editorial board, has written a column on Mayor Richard Daley's obstinate defiance of that Supreme Court decision. Here is Chapman's column:

Chicago Tribune

CHICAGO DEFIES FORGOTTEN 2ND AMENDMENT
by Steve Chapman

November 27, 2008

Since the Supreme Court upheld the individual right to own guns last summer, one municipality with handgun bans after another has faced reality. Washington, which lost the case, changed its law. Morton Grove repealed its ban. So did Wilmette. Likewise for Evanston. Last week, Winnetka followed suit.

Then there is Chicago, which is being sued for violating the 2nd Amendment but refuses to confront the possibility that what the Supreme Court said may apply to this side of the Appalachians.

When it comes to firearms, Mayor Richard Daley is no slave to rationality. "Does this lead to everyone having a gun in our society?" he asked after the ruling came down. "Then why don't we do away with the court system and go back to the Old West, where you have a gun and I have a gun and we'll settle it in the streets?"

From listening to him, you might assume that the only places in North America that don't have firefights on a daily basis are cities that outlaw handguns. You might also assume that Chicago is an oasis of concord, rather than the site of 443 homicides last year.

So it's no surprise that Daley refuses to make the slightest change to the handgun ordinance, preferring to fight the lawsuits filed by the National Rifle Association. He is not impressed that 1) the law almost certainly violates the Constitution, which elected officials are supposed to uphold, and 2) it would cost taxpayers a lot of money to fight lawsuits the city is bound to lose.

The Chicago ban dates back to 1983, when no one had to worry about the forgotten 2nd Amendment. The ordinance prohibited the possession of all handguns (except those acquired before the law took effect).

It had no obvious benefits: Homicides climbed in the ensuing years and by 1992 were 41 percent higher than before. But the policy rested undisturbed until last summer, when the Supreme Court ruled that Washington's ban on handguns violated the individual right to use arms for self-defense in the home.

If that logic applies to the Washington statute, it very likely applies to Chicago's law. The city, however, notes that the nation's capital is a federal enclave, and that the court did not say states must respect the 2nd Amendment. That's true. The court's ruling also did not say that China is in Asia, which doesn't make it part of South America.

Once upon a time, the Bill of Rights restricted only what the federal government could do: States were free to restrict free speech, conduct unreasonable searches and impose cruel and unusual punishments. But nowadays the court says that because of the 14th Amendment, adopted after the Civil War, states must respect virtually all the rights set out in the Constitution.

There is no reason to think the justices would exempt the 2nd Amendment from that rule. Ronald Rotunda, a constitutional scholar at Chapman University law school, thinks the Chicago ban has no more than a one in five chance of surviving court review.

That might be worth the gamble except for all the money the city is asking to be relieved of. The losing side would not only have to cover the costs of its own lawyers, but also pay the winning attorneys. In the Washington case, the amount has not been settled, but the lawyers who handled the suit asked the court for nearly $3.6 million, while Washington offered $800,000. So if Daley insists on fighting all the way to the Supreme Court, the total tab would probably run into multiple millions.

The city says this is not necessarily money that can be saved, because even a revised ordinance could face a court challenge. But sensible changes might deter opponents from pursuing a lawsuit and, if not, at least the new version would stand a good chance of being upheld. Judging from its lawsuit, the NRA is aiming only at eliminating the city's ban on handguns, which is what the Supreme Court would almost surely demand anyway.

Daley's recalcitrance may be viscerally satisfying to him and some others, but it doesn't change the choice the city faces. It can change the law now, or it can change it later. Later would be a lot more expensive.

TEACHERS UNIONS RESPONSIBLE FOR HELLHOLES

In today's TownHall.com, Jonah Goldberg had a column, "The True School Scandal," about why President-elect Barach Obama and other politicians, both Democrats and Republicans, choose to bypass the public schools when they get to Washington, opting instead to send their kids to expensive private schools. Goldberg blames much of what ais public education on the teachers unions. I believe he is exactly right.

As a former educator with some 28 years of experience, I feel that I can speak with a bit of authority about the teaching profession. When I was a teacher (1954-56) at South Oak Cliff High School in Dallas, public school standards were much higher than they are today. And many teachers were a lot better too. There were no teachers unions as such. Then along came school integration.

I want to make sure everyone understands that I do not blame African-Americans for the downfall of our public school standards. WHITE SOCIETY IS TO BLAME FOR THAT. When schools were segregated, white society shamefully neglected our black schools. Many black teachers were ill prepared to carry out their assignments. Thus, blacks received an inferior education compared to that of most white students.

When you threw the whole mix together - black and white students and teachers - it was the beginning of a downward spriral for public education. Schools in cities with high concentrations of minorities suffered from a complete breakdown of discipline. The curricula for inner city, suburban and rural schools was watered down with the replacement of some core courses by multiculturalism and diversity courses. White flight to the suburbs resegregated inner city schools, re-establishing the inferior education blacks received during the segregation era.

Before continuing, I want to insert some exerpts from Goldberg's column:

".....most Washington public schools are hellholes.

According to data compiled by the Washington Post in 2007, of the 100 largest school districts in the country, D.C. ranks third in spending for each student, around $13,000 a pupil, but last in spending on instruction. More than half of every dollar of education spending goes to the salaries of administrators. Test scores are abysmal; the campuses are often unsafe.

Michelle Rhee, D.C.'s heroic school chancellor, in her 17 months on the job has already made meaningful improvements. But that's grading on an enormous curve. The Post recently reported that on observing a bad teacher in a classroom, Rhee complained to the principal. "Would you put your grandchild in that class?" she asked.

'If that's the standard,' replied the defensive principal, 'we don't have any effective teachers in my school.'

So if Obama and other politicians don't want to send their kids to schools where even the principals have such views, that's no scandal. The scandal is that these politicians tolerate such awful schools at all. For anyone.

The main reason politicians adopt a policy of malign neglect: teachers unions, arguably the single worst mainstream institution in our country today. No group has a stronger or better-organized stranglehold on a political party than they do. No group is more committed to putting ideological blather and self-interest before the public good.

Rhee has been pushing a new contract that would provide merit pay to successful teachers. The system is voluntary: Individual teachers can stay in the current system that rewards mere seniority or opt to join a parallel system that pays for superior performance. Many talented teachers would love the opportunity.

Alas, the national teachers unions insist that linking pay to results is an outrageous attack on the integrity of public schools. They have insisted that D.C. teachers not even be allowed to vote on the contract."


The teachers and their unions keep blah, blah, blahing sanctimoniously about the fantastic job they're doing under the most trying circumstances, their dedication to teaching students, their commitment to teaching excellence, their love for students, the extra time they put in, and the sacrifices they have to make because of inadequate salaries.

Whatever teaching problems they experience are blamed on excessive paper work, on uncaring or unaware principals and administrators concerned only about their own asses, and on little or no back-up from above when complaints are lodged against them. Hey, that's exactly the same line cops use when bitching about their problems and higheer-ups.

The truth is that the teachers unions are much more concerned about protecting the jobs of teachers than they are about how well or how poorly students are educated. Sad to say, there are quite a few border-line illiterates in the teaching profession. Instead of helping to root incompetent teachers out of the system, the unions do everything they can to protect the jobs of these misfits .

Goldberg is correct when he says "most Washington public schools are hellholes." But Washington is not the only place with those kinds of schools. The same description can easily apply to many other urban school systems. Those hellholes will never be cleansed of incompetence unless and until the teachers unions are reigned in. Good teachers, of which there are many, do not need the job protection offered by the unions.

SAD PASSING OF A GREAT ICON

Please join me in remembering a great icon of the entertainment community.

The Pillsbury Doughboy died yesterday of a yeast infection and trauma complications from repeated pokes in the belly. He was 71.

Doughboy was buried in a lightly greased coffin. Dozens of celebrities turned out to pay their respects, including Mrs. Butterworth, Hungry Jack, the California Raisins, Betty Crocker, the Hostess Twinkies, and Captain Crunch.

The grave site was piled high with flours.

Aunt Jemima delivered the eulogy and lovingly described Doughboy as a man who never knew how much he was kneaded.

Doughboy rose quickly in show business, but his later life was filled with turnovers. He was not considered a very smart cookie, wasting much of his dough on half-baked schemes. Despite being a little flaky at times, he still was a crusty old man and was considered a positive roll model for millions.

Doughboy is survived by his wife Play Dough, three children: John Dough, Jane Dough and Dosey Dough, plus they had one in the oven. He is also survived by his elderly father, Pop Tart.

The funeral was held at 3:50 for about 20 minutes.


EDITOR'S NOTE: OK, so I digressed from my usual blogger fare. What's wrong with a little humor, espcially in these trying financial times? Thanks to whoever came up with this little jewel and a Happy Thanksgiving to all!

CHUCK NORRIS (AND THOMAS JEFFERSON) ON THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE

A lot has been written and litigated on the separation of church and state. Leave it to Walker, Texas Ranger to come up with one of the best discourses I've ever read on the subject. Chuck Norris' columns have left me with no doubt that he is a hard-core Christian conservative. Nothing wrong with that. Of course, being Jewish, I tend to see things somewhat differently from Chuck.

I think it is very unfortunate that municipalities, either through intimidation or court orders, have stopped displaying Christian symbols on public property, especially during the Christmas season. It has never bothered me to see the Nativity scene of the manger with the baby Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the three wise men displayed on the courthouse lawn. Nor am I offended by the display of a cross. The reality is that the vast majority ouf our citizens are Christians and I do not think they should be precluded from displaying their religion, even if that might offend some members of other faiths.

I cannot understand why so many people are upset by the addition, in 1954, of the phrase "under God" in the pledge of allegiance. Personally, I do not think it was necessarey to add that phrase, but what's the big deal? I am certainly not bothered by the imprinting of the phrase "In God We Trust" on our currency and coins. The only people who should be offended by the phrases "under God" and "In God We Trurst" are atheists, and I don't think they really give a rat's ass about that.

What has bothered me is my experience with prayer in public schools. I went to high school in Marshall which is right in the "bible belt" of East Texas. Every morning, I think it was during the home room period, prayers were offered in every classroom. But instead being non-denominational, each prayer ended with " we ask this in the name of Jesus, our Lord and Savior." I was not offended by that, but it did make me feel very uncomfortable.

Why didn't those good Christians have the decency to consider the possibility, in my case the fact, that someone in the classroom was not of the Christian faith? Why couldn't they have prayed just to God without invoking Jesus' name? That would have met the needs of all faiths that believe in only one deity - Christians, Muslims and Jews.

My first college experience was much worse. Right after graduation from high school, I attended East Texas Baptist College in Marshall. I lived in a dorm and shared a room with a theological student who made me join him in prayer every night before going to bed. Being an upper classman, he whacked me hard with a paddle, or occasionally with a broom, if I did not get on my knees and invoke the name of Jesus.

Some of the professors intimidated me into accompanying them to the local Baptist church for Wednesday night prayer meetings and sometimes for services on Sundays. I recall sitting in church with all eyes turned on me at the end of each service to see if I would answer the call to come forward for Jesus. Even before I graduated from high school, I had planned to join the Army the day I turned seventeen. So it was a great relief to trade the shit I had to put up with at ETBC for the shit I had to take in basic training.

What I'm getting at is that I have no problem with the public display of a particular religious faith, as long as no one is trying to ram that faith down my throat. I also do not have a problem with prayer in public schools if those prayers are to God, concluding with a simple "Amen" and not ending "in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost/Spirit" or "in the name of Jesus, our Lord and Savior."

Now, back to Chuck Norris. In this instance his presentation is dispassionate, unlike presentations in some of his previous columns. He goes into considerable detail on what Thomas Jefferson really meant when he advocated the separation of chuch and state. Norris also quotes Abraham Lincoln's Thanksgiving Day Proclamation. All in all, Chuck's column from WorldNetDaily is a very reasonable and sound discourse on the separation of church and state and he directs it at members of all faiths. Here it is:


WorldNetDaily
November 24, 2008

Thanksgiving: A violation of church and state?
by Chuck Norris

Is government observance of Thanksgiving a violation of the separation of church and state?

In a culture on the fast track of secular progressivism, I knew sooner or later I would read or hear a news report that proclaimed there is something constitutionally errant with the state recognition of Thanksgiving, a holiday that is at its heart about thanks-giving to God. With the Christmas culture war almost passé, it was only a matter of time before the day that honors the Christian Pilgrims came under attack. Secularists seek to seize your nativities – and now they are trying to steal your turkey.

Last week a Newsweek/Washington Post editorial labeled presidential Thanksgiving day proclamations "cracks in the wall of separation." The author explained, "The problem with these proclamations, it seems to me, is that they pave the way for public acceptance of gross violations of the constitutional separation of church and state. …" What?!

Forget for a moment that nearly every president since George Washington and the Continental Congress before them have given Judeo-Christian proclamations for Thanksgiving (except between 1816-1861), as well as declared other national days of fasting and prayer. Secularists (like the author of the editorial) get almost giddy every time they highlight that Thomas Jefferson rejected the notion of proclaiming Thanksgiving speeches and prayers. But the truth is Jefferson was far from the modern-day secularist they make him out to be.

Sure, Jefferson was adamant (as we all should be) that there should be no federal subscription to any one form of religious sectarianism. That is largely what the First Amendment is all about – establishing the free exercise of religion, and restricting sectarian supremacy in government as well as government intrusion in churches.

But secularists make two grave mistakes when it comes to Jefferson and the First Amendment. First, they misconstrue his understanding of separation. Second, they overlook how Jefferson himself endorsed and intermingled religion and politics, even during his two terms as president. Let me explain, as I believe it is a timely reminder as we experience new rounds of battles in our Christmas culture war, too.

Liberals would have us believe that the First Amendment establishes a "separation of church and state." But that phrase appears nowhere in the First Amendment, which actually reads: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

The phrase "separation of Church and State" actually comes from a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1802 to the Danbury Baptists. He told them that no particular Christian denomination was going to have a monopoly in government. His words, "a wall of separation between Church and State," were not written to remove all religious practice from government or civic settings, but to prohibit the domination and even legislation of religious sectarianism.

Proof that Jefferson was not trying to rid government of religious (specifically Christian) influence comes from the fact he endorsed using government buildings for church meetings and services, signed a treaty with the Kaskaskia Indians that allotted federal money to support the building of a Catholic Church and to pay the salary of the church's priests, and repeatedly renewed legislation that gave land to the United Brethren to help their missionary activities among the Indians.

Some might be completely surprised to discover that just two days after Jefferson wrote his famous letter citing the "wall of separation between Church and State," he attended church in the place where he always had as president: the U.S. Capitol. The very seat of our nation's government was used for sacred purposes. As the Library of Congress website notes, "It is no exaggeration to say that on Sundays in Washington during the administrations of Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809) and of James Madison (1809-1817) the state became the church."

Does that sound like someone who was trying to create an impenetrable wall of separation between church and state? If everything the American Civil Liberties Union said about the First Amendment were true, Jefferson would flunk their religious-state separation test. Liberal groups like the ACLU don't want Americans to know that for the founders, Judeo-Christian belief and practice and government administration and policy were not separated at all. Denominational tests for public office were prohibited, but the idea that Judeo-Christian ideas and practices had to be kept separate from government would have struck them as ridiculous. The very basis for the founders' ideas was rights that were endowed upon all of us by our Creator.

The ACLU and like-minded groups are not preserving First Amendment rights; they are perverting the meaning of the Establishment Clause (which was to prevent the creation of a national church like the Church of England) and denying the Free Exercise Clause (which preserves our rights to worship as we want, privately and publicly). Both clauses were intended to safeguard religious liberty, not to circumscribe its practice. The framers were seeking to guarantee a freedom of religion, not a freedom from religion.

As Judge Roy Moore of Alabama reminded us, "The issue was addressed 150 years ago when the Senate Judiciary Committee, while considering the congressional chaplaincy, said, '[The founders] had no fear or jealousy of religion itself, nor did they wish to see us an irreligious people; they did not intend to prohibit a just expression of religious devotion by the legislators of the nation, even in their public character as legislators; they did not intend to spread over all the public authorities and the whole public action of the nation the dead and revolting spectacle of atheistical apathy.'" Yet groups like the ACLU are spreading that "revolting spectacle of atheistical apathy" across our land, and in doing so they are not only changing our laws but revising our history.

So, would Jefferson have regarded any government observance of Thanksgiving as a violation of the separation of church and state? Absolutely not – though he personally preferred to demonstrate his own allegiance to (and freedom under) the First Amendment by declining Thanksgiving proclamations. To say he would have avoided Creator-language in any and all civil addresses is ludicrous. Remember, after all, he did write the Declaration of Independence with all of its Creator-language – a most supreme theistic treatise or proclamation, if you will.

In an 1808 letter to Rev. Samuel Miller, Jefferson consented it was to protect the church from the state (not vice versa) that was at the heart of his motivation: "I consider the government of the United States as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises. … But it is only proposed that I should recommend not prescribe a day of fasting and prayer."

Let's face the present Thanksgiving facts. President Bush will likely give the last explicit Judeo-Christian Thanksgiving proclamation that Americans will hear for the next four to eight years, as President-elect Obama will likely coddle a form of godliness in his Thanksgiving addresses (if he indeed gives them) that appeases the masses with a deity that fits every politically correct dress.

But I'm an optimist. And, since so much attention is being given right now by the media and the president-elect himself regarding his parallels to and lessons learned from President Abraham Lincoln, I recommend Obama heed Lincoln's Thanksgiving wisdom. Don't mince or milk down the God of the pilgrims, as is being done in public schools across this land with the retelling of that first Thanksgiving. Boldly proclaim, as Lincoln and nearly every other president, thanks to our Creator for His providential care (even through tough economic winters).

Obama doesn't even need a speech writer for Thanksgiving 2009. He can simply recite Lincoln's Thanksgiving Day Proclamation, in which he thanks the Almighty for America's bountiful blessings (despite enduring a time of war and grave economic hardships). The content seems divinely timed for even such a wintery season as ours:

"No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the most high God, who while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American people. I do, therefore, invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwells in the heavens. And I recommend to them that, while offering up the ascriptions justly due to him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation, and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union."

Whatever your religious persuasion, don't hesitate this Thanksgiving to bow your head, give thanks to God and follow Lincoln's advice. And, when you do, don't forget to say a prayer for our troops and their families. While they serve us so we can safely serve our Thanksgiving dressings, the least we can do is serve them a little honor and remembrance.

CONSERVATIVE JURIST SLAMS HELLER DECISION

All of us pro-gunners applauded the recent Heller decision of the Supreme Court which held that the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to keep and bear arms. But in my blog, "Anti-Gun Control Garbage" (11-18-08), I warned: "And don't forget, the Supreme Court ruled that we could keep and bear arms only by a razor thin 5-4 margin. If Obama can appoint just one new liberal Justice, that decision could easily be reversed."

In his column today, George Will described a conservative jurist's highly critical opinion of the Heller decision. After you read his column you will see that the Heller decision is quite fragile and will lead to "an utterly predictable torrent of litigation" and restrictive legislation. Perhaps we may have celebrated a bit too soon. Here is the column:


ON A RARE '08 CONSERVATIVE VICTORY
by George Will

WASHINGTON -- Of conservatives' few victories this year, the most cherished came when the Supreme Court, in District of Columbia v. Heller, held for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to bear arms. Now, however, a distinguished conservative jurist argues that the court's ruling was mistaken and had the principal flaws of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 abortion ruling that conservatives execrate as judicial overreaching. Both rulings, says J. Harvie Wilkinson, suddenly recognized a judicially enforceable right grounded in "an ambiguous constitutional text."

Writing for the Virginia Law Review, Judge Wilkinson of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals says Heller, like Roe, was disrespectful of legislative judgments, has hurled courts into a political thicket of fine-tuning policy in interminable litigation, and traduced federalism. Furthermore, Heller exposed "originalism" -- the doctrine that the Constitution's text means precisely what those who wrote its words meant by them -- as no barrier to "judicial subjectivity."

The Second Amendment says: "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." Until June, the question was: Is the right guaranteed to individuals and unconnected with military service, or only to states as they exercise their right to maintain militias? The court held, 5-4, for the former view.

In Roe, the court said the 14th Amendment guarantee of "due process" implies a general right of privacy, within which lurks a hitherto unnoticed abortion right that, although "fundamental," the Framers never mentioned. And this right somehow contains the trimester scheme of abortion regulations.

Since 1973, the court has been entangled in the legislative function of adumbrating an abortion code, the details of which are, Wilkinson says, "not even remotely suggested by the text or history of the 14th Amendment." Parental consent? Spousal consent? Spousal notification? Parental notification? Waiting periods? Lack of funding for nontherapeutic abortions? Partial-birth abortion procedures? Zoning ordinances that exclude abortion facilities? The court has tried to tickle answers for these and other policy questions from the Constitution.

Conservatives are correct: The court, having asserted a right on which the Constitution is silent, has been writing rules that are detailed, debatable, inescapably arbitrary and irreducibly political. But now, Wilkinson says, conservatives are delighted that Heller has put the court on a similar path.

In Heller, the court was at least dealing with a right the Constitution actually mentions. But the majority and minority justices demonstrated that there are powerful, detailed, historically grounded "originalist" arguments for opposite understandings of what the Framers intended with that right to "keep and bear arms."

Now the court must slog through an utterly predictable torrent of litigation, writing, piecemeal, a federal gun code concerning the newfound individual right. What trigger locks or other safety requirements impermissibly burden the exercise of this right? What registration requirements, background checks, waiting periods for purchasers, ballistic identifications? What restrictions on ammunition? On places where guns may be purchased or carried? On the kinds of people (e.g., those with domestic violence records) who may own guns? On the number of gun purchases in a month?

Judicial conservatism requires judges to justify their decisions with reference to several restraining principles, including deference to the democratic branches of government, and to states' responsibilities under federalism. But, Wilkinson writes, Heller proves that when the only principle is originalism, and when conscientious people come to different conclusions about the Framers' intentions, originalist judges must resolve the conflict by voting their policy preferences.

It has been said that the most important word in the Supreme Court's lexicon is not "liberty" or "equality" or even "justice," it is "five." But whereas in baseball a tie goes to the runner, in controversies about the constitutionality of legislation, a tie between serious arguments should, Wilkinson says, tilt judicial judgment to the democratic side -- the legislature.

When rights are unambiguously enumerated, courts should protect them vigorously. But Wilkinson says that when a right's definition is debatable, generous judicial deference should be accorded to legislative judgments -- particularly those of the states, which should enjoy constitutional space to function as laboratories for testing policy variations.

Roe and Heller, says Wilkinson, diminish liberty by "handing our democratic destiny to the courts." Many libertarian conservatives disagree, arguing that the protection of individual liberty requires robust judicial circumscription of democracy.

So, regarding judging, too, conservatism is a house divided. And as Lincoln said (sort of), a house divided against itself is really interesting.

COPS NEED TO BE EXTRA CAREFUL

In this litigious society, if they value their jobs, cops need to be extra careful in how they react to provacations, whether by lone criminals or by protesters during civil demonstrations. A case in point is last year's May Day pro-immigration demonstration in Los Angeles.

When a few troublemakers within the huge but largely peaceful crowd threw bottles and other objects at the police, the cops reacted by using their batons and firing rubber bullets at the protesters, injuring hundreds, including a number of children, the elderly and even bystanders who did not sympathize with the demonstrators. The incident cost a number of officers and supervisors their jobs, and the city ended up agreeing to pay $12.85 million in damages.

All major American cities and many small towns have been plagued with damage suits for the excessive use of police force and in most instances they settle out of court. The days when cops could kick the shit out of people with impunity ended the day that cities had to start paying extensive damages for what is thought to be police misconduct.

Here is the Los Angeles Times report on that multi-million dollar settlement:


LOS ANGELES TIMES

L.A. to pay nearly $13 million over May Day melee, sources say

The settlement would mark one of the largest payouts ever made to resolve LAPD misconduct. Department has sanctioned officers and trained force to prevent another such incident.

By Joel Rubin
November 20, 2008

The city of Los Angeles would pay nearly $13 million to immigration protesters and bystanders injured by Los Angeles police officers during a melee at MacArthur Park last year, according to sources familiar with a tentative settlement reached by both sides.

If approved, it would mark one of the largest payouts ever made to resolve LAPD misconduct. Further payouts are likely to journalists who also sued, charging that they were roughed up by the LAPD while covering the event.

A settlement in the case would go a long way toward closing an embarrassing and damaging chapter in the LAPD's recent history, department observers said. The proposed agreement still must be approved by the City Council, the mayor and the judge overseeing the claims against the city.

Longtime LAPD observer Merrick Bobb, executive director of the Police Assessment Resource Center, said a settlement, following the punishment of officers and changes in LAPD procedures, is a necessary last step for the department.

"It allows the LAPD . . . to move forward having learned its lessons and tied up the loose ends it opened," Bobb said.

Sources familiar with the deal declined to provide details and spoke on condition that their names not be used because the terms of the agreement were confidential pending the council's approval. Several of the sources, however, confirmed the size of the proposed deal at $12.85 million.

The council was scheduled to discuss the settlement in private Wednesday, but emerged without voting on whether to approve it. The council is expected to take up the matter again in the near future.

City Council members, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Police Chief William J. Bratton all declined to comment. Representatives from the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, a major Latino advocacy group that has been involved in the settlement talks, also declined to comment.

Last year, as a May Day pro-immigration march was concluding in the park west of downtown, lines of police in riot gear moved in to clear the area. Reacting to what authorities described as a pocket of agitators throwing bottles and other objects, officers from the LAPD's elite Metro Division used batons and fired rubber bullets into the largely peaceful crowd. Hundreds of demonstrators and journalists and 18 officers suffered injuries. No one was killed.

Many protesters and bystanders -- ranging from children to senior citizens -- filed lawsuits, alleging that they had been injured by police. One woman said she subsequently suffered a miscarriage. Some alleged physical and emotional distress from the incident.

In the immediate aftermath, Bratton removed two command-level officers from their posts; one later resigned. And in September, after a long internal investigation, Bratton announced plans to suspend 11 lower-ranking officers and called for the termination of four others for excessive use of force, failing to rein in other officers or lying to investigators during the inquiry.

Investigators were unable to identify several other officers who probably would have been punished for their roles in the incident.

A scathing internal LAPD report blamed poor leadership and planning as well as the overly aggressive tactics by officers in the field.

With graphic images of the violent chaos recorded by photographers and television crews in the park, the clash gained immediate worldwide attention. It dealt a serious public relations blow to a Police Department that under Bratton has made a deliberate effort to shake a reputation for brutality that stemmed from the Rodney G. King beating, the Rampart scandal and other incidents.

The fallout also strained Bratton's relationship with leaders of the union that represents rank-and-file officers, who criticized him harshly for his comments about the officers' conduct.

Eager to avoid another such misstep, the LAPD retrained all its officers in basic crowd control tactics and overhauled the way it prepares for and manages protests and other major events.

This year's May Day marches -- as well as other tense protests such as those following voters' decision this month to ban same-sex marriage -- went smoothly.

The proposed settlement would resolve a class-action lawsuit and several individual lawsuits filed in federal court -- the majority of the more than 300 claims against the city.

It does not include, however, lawsuits filed in state courts by journalists, a source said.

Under the proposed terms, the amount paid to each person would vary dramatically from several hundred thousand dollars to a few thousand dollars based on the extent of their injuries and medical expenses, sources said.